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Kwon Sang-woo

South Korean actor

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ483621 ↗
Source-derived summary

Kwon Sang-woo (Korean: 권상우; born August 5, 1976) is a South Korean actor, famous for the melodrama series Stairway to Heaven. His other notable credits include the films Once Upon a Time in High School (2004), 71: Into the Fire (2010), The Accidental Detective (2015) and its 2018 sequel, The Divine Move 2: The Wrathful (2019), and Hitman: Agent Jun (2020), as well as the television series Big Thing (2010), Medical Top Team (2013), and Queen of Mystery (2017).

He has garnered numerous accolades, including multiple SBS Drama Awards and nominations for the Baeksang Arts Awards. Kwon Sang-woo starred in the Chinese drama Poong Hwa Sul Wul.

Career

2001–2005: Early career and breakthrough

Kwon Sang-woo, the most visible example of the so-called mom-zzang (slang for "great body") movement, started his career as a fashion model in the late 1990s. His first acting experience was in the TV drama Delicious Proposal, and for the first few years of his entertainment career, he received only minor roles on television, before making his big-screen debut in the martial arts film Volcano High (2001). The following year, he played his first lead role in the comedy Make It Big (2002) together with real-life best friend Song Seung-heon.

Kwon's breakthrough came in 2003 with the phenomenally successful romantic comedy My Tutor Friend, as a troublesome high school boy who is tutored by a college student of the same age (played by actress Kim Ha-neul). This was followed by appearances in My Good Partner, the world's first movie made for mobile phones, and the music video collection Project X.

His next film released in early 2004 was also a hit. Once Upon a Time in High School portrayed the authoritarian society of the 1970s through a notoriously violent high school.

Editorial summary

“Kwon Sang-woo” enters the record as south Korean actor. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kwon, Sang-woo and South can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1976, 2004, 2010, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1976-08-05. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Kwon, Sang-woo and South.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Kwon Sang-woo” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Kwon, Sang-woo and South provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q483621. VIAF identifies the subject as 95062987. The Library of Congress control number is no2011080684. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976, 2004, 2010 and 2015.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kwon Sang-woo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kwon Sang-woo primary sources, Kwon Sang-woo archive and Kwon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kwon Sang-woo”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kwon Sang-woo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.